What If
by Nekoyasha12
Summary: Through a cruel twist of fates Harry is now the Master of Death. He has died twice now. Once of his own volition and again due to the actions of his once Lord Aizen. Confronted with Death its self Harry requests to return to his original world. As his memories from then are still foggy, yet he knows deep within, a torrent of unfinished business demands his return. And so he goes...


What if fate and destiny and all it's predetermined notions were nothing but that. Notions.

…Well damn.

It was during the middle of summer in 1996 a law was made, its clause passed and the ruling was to be carried out immediately and with extreme prejudice.

"_It is hereby decreed from the voting of the Wizengamot, construction from The International Confederation of Wizards (ICW), and the signing from the Minister of Magic that the new Wizarding World Population Acceleration (WWPA) Law is to undergo action effective immediately."_

The ruling was simple and straightforward, for once. Every available body of Wizarding Society from the ages of sixteen and up who were unbonded was to find, claim and procreate within six month's time from the Laws announcement. Any and all who failed to adhere were stripped of there magic; minds wiped clear of everything magical and cast out into the Muggle world.

Safe to say pandemonium insured, I was no different. It didn't help that at the time I believed my…difference would be the end of my magical life. Oh, how I wished.

Albus Dumbledore in his infinite wisdom saw fit to bond myself to one Severus Tobias Snape, Potion Master extraordinaire, Head to the House of Slytherin, Death Eater, Spy for the Order of the Phoenix and number one Harry Potter-Hater. Yes. Brilliant Headmaster.

Suffice to say a rocky start was an understatement. Yet we managed with minimum damage, if just barely. However, even after our marriage our bond was never consummated. Something neither of us desired at the time but knew it was a must and would have to be done. Eventually.

Sadly that eventually never came and it was towards the end of my fifth year everything came apart.

Sure throughout the year Snape and I grew to become less…acidic. Even going so far as to say semi-civil. And yet, even through all the snide remarks, venomous looks and cutting words I actually grew to like…even love the dour man who had come to be my husband.

The trigger-fall to the first domino was when the Headmaster summoned me after returning from an outing. He showed me a gaudy ring in a heavily warded box. I'll never forget the way his eyes steadied on me. Searching. Demanding almost, as if to clarify some age-old mystery. What ever it was he must have found it. Though then I had not known why. After all I had only rubbed my forehead in irritation. I had thought nothing of the sudden headache that had spiked and then vanished just as quickly as the Headmaster had shown me the ring and then resealed it.

It was two weeks later the toppling began with the arrival of an overly shifty and panicked Dobby. He remained for only five minutes, the shortest visit from him yet. The elf had stuttered and sputtered about "things not meant this way" and "kind Master worth it" before thrusting a small ball in my hands and giving me the most heartfelt, serene smile I've ever seen on the crazy elf before he popped away without any explanation. I was left confused and curious by both Dobby's behavior and why he gave me a golden snitch.

Dobby never returned after that day.

The peak of the fall was a two-parter. First was my massive fight with Snape. We had still to consummate our bond and as such were in a rather fragile state. See even if married if our bond is not sealed then there is a risk that someone else could claim it. In thus vetoing the marriage of the first partner too solidify and cement the bond with a second partner. It was both highly dangerous and extremely detrimental to the emotional stability of the pair. So when Snape still refused to complete the bond my fear caused me to snap. Suffice enough to say I was staying in separate courters after that, terrified and heartbroken.

The second half was when I had followed Draco Malfoy to the Astronomy tower under cloak. At the sight that greeted me I didn't care that Malfoy might be a Death Eater or not. All I saw was a trembling teen crouched beneath the towering frame of a power embodied wizard, wand raised. Acting without thinking I disarmed Dumbledore possibly saving Malfoy's life. That decision would become my final Achilles heel. For though a life was spared and a crisis diverted, with the attempt of Death Eaters trying to swarm the school it was just the calm before my storm.

I only had three days before my break commenced.

And like the ever rise and fall of the sun it came with an attack on Hogsmeade.

Lucius Malfoy that time did not miss his shot.

I had been the auspicious guess of one Lord Voldemort and his band of merry Death Eaters for one whole month before my eyes could gaze at more then four walls. And yet there sights, though had heightened were lifeless.

Many speculated, few asked and even less wanted to believe, but believe they had to.

Harry James Potter-Snape was now Harry James Potter-Riddle magical wise as well as a vampire.

I will forever remember the look of ultimate devastation on my late husband's face. Those harsh and sometimes cold stones he called eyes brimmed with collapsing tears fighting to be set loose. The utter heart wrenching gaze that over took his features as he took in my stone-still body as I had just stared off into nothing. I remember not if he had spoken to me but the harsh flinch from the first words croaked from my mouth still sparked both a bit of morbid satisfaction with equal part heart crushing regret. I had warned him, tried to tell him. Even now I stand by my words.

"Of pride and foolish, I wonder which I could still hold."

Though they tried, oh how they tried nothing changed. My friends tried to be there; to comfort, to support, to confide or even let loose. My silence finally drove them off.

Adults; teachers, authorities, parents, even parental figures close as family soon too gave up.

Enemies ignored me. I was too far broken for them anymore.

Only my ex-husband remained. Whether he felt guilt, responsible or just being a stubborn, nosey adult he continued his efforts with continual fail.

Two months was my limit.

I remember sneaking off to the front of the castle just before dawn. Walking out over the front grounds, emptiness clinging to me like an old lover. I stared wistfully up the pinking sky.

I remember turning at what sounded like a stampede. Moments later the castle doors flew open as a mass of people rapidly came pouring out.

Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Horace Slughorn, Poppy Pomfrey, Pomona Sprout, Sybill Trelawney, Remus Lupin, Alastor Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, Argus Filch with his cat Mrs. Norris on his heels and Rubeus Hagrid pushing forward from the rear.

Susan Bones, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley and surprisingly Draco Malfoy with their youth was clearly faster and more agile then the rear platoon as they were several feet ahead.

At the head of this mob of terror stricken faces had been Severus Snape. His long legs and adrenalin pumped body propelled him further faster from the rest. Just not fast enough.

I had watched with something akin to happiness but not quite. The emptiness was too vast, to great. Although, looking back if I had more time to ponder over it all, I think there might have been some sort of soft, or maybe warm sort, a kind of fuzzy feel perhaps, which settled somewhere between my chest and stomach. Perhaps fondness?

Yes.

Perhaps.

I think I remember returning some sort of vague smile as streams of light started to streak the land. There was a drastic increase in the noise level for all but a second and then I was encased in still, quiet, calm darkness.

**-x-x-x-**

When next I could comprehend my surroundings I was in a vast, endless field of white, lying entangled within what looked to be barbed branches of a sort.

At the time I had not cared. It was silent, it was calm and I felt at peace.

I remember wondering why I seemed to yearn for such tranquility. As if to dodge away from loud and chaos, something I knew not what was then.

"**Fleeing dimensions and breaking down your structure will not separate us. I will always find you Master and I am always with you."**

I had not known whose voice that was or what the words meant. I wouldn't either until many centuries later when I was awoken again, but this time by something- No, someone.

"I can help you fill that emptiness inside you with a purpose."

The hand from a strange being dressed in white, just like I, stretched out towards me. Eyes drowned with the essence of spoiled honey and chilling intellect. I admit to have been curious.

Back then I had no name. I could not remember anything from my past or even my present. So I gave myself one.

"I am Ulquiorra Cifer."

**-x-x-x-**

I had simply been curious as to see if the female could supply me with answers, even amusing ones. I had not intended to grow…intrigued.

She was but another human, though I had come to deduct that the female attribute of the species came in a wide range of disproportions. The creatures were both irritating and a conundrum which equally frustrated me in trying to understand.

However throughout the whole mission it wasn't her female physique that kept me wondering or her life brimming eyes that captivated me or even her spirited nature that kept me questioning and contradicting, no. It was her hair. It was such a vibrant shade of orange it sometimes appeared red, especially when lighting hit it just right. And every time my eyes caught sight of it something in me stirred. I did not know what then, but I do now.

Longing.

It was then, in my final moment as I dispersed throughout the winds, gliding into, becoming one with the sands of Hueco Mundo that I finally remembered a bit of my past, but not enough for my liking.

Ulquiorra Cifer, forth espada and member of Sōsuke Aizen's Arrancar army was no more.

**-x-x-x-**

The base form was a bipedal, humanoid shape. That was all that hinted anything human. Its waist down was covered in fur-like, shadowy wisps that flickered off like a lazy flame. Five claws dug into an unseen floor with a smaller sixth hooking inward slightly at the base of the heel. The arms two were just like its lower half, though the blackness stopped at its bicep. Five long, slim claws tipped off both hands. The shoulders, back and torso lay bear skin, a sickly pale gray. Multiple ribs, at least three times what a single human being can have all protruded out making the thing appear highly anorexic, and yet it's shoulders were broad and abs of a six-pack are visible. The remainder of the beast was covered in that shadow-like flame. It fanned out and flickered like shredded threads around its neck imitating a ghastly lion's mane. A trail of the mane tampered off traveling from the chest down the front and joining the waist. The head had the vague shape of a gharial crocodile, severe overbites, protruding fangs glinted out on display at the end of the beast's maw with larger molar teeth in the back peaking out from the split of its mouth as it grinned. Two pairs of horns jetted out from atop its head at the side. The first were thick and long and curled up at the ends like a gazelles. The second pair is one-forth the size and sat curled slightly back behind the bigger set. A pair of soul sucking, void white eyes illuminated the beast's face. A pair of massive thin bat-like wings spread out from it's back and a long, so long it could wrap around itself four times over- sleek, whip like lion styled tail with a bush of tuft at the end completed the creatures presence.

It was massive. Easily thirty stories tall, and its gleaming eyes were locked on me.

"**Again you try to flee, but again I still remain by your side."**

The beast spoke; it's maw unmoving and the voice a haunting mesh of young and old, male and female. A voice of one but also of many; the tone varying in multitudes of pitch all ranging in a single sharing emotion.

It sounded as if the beast was countless voices all speaking at once and in complete sync.

"I run from no one. I have merely met my end at the hands of an adversary that is greater. Who may you be?"

The beasts eyes squinted up a bit in glee as its huge maw opened. Clouds of misty smoke gushed out as the beast's bellowed laughter shook the shadowy, void world I had found myself in.

"**You can not meet your end Master. For you are my Master and I shall not let you go. Not for a time. No."**

Master?

I had only pondered the beast's words for but a moment when what could be called amazed horror decorated my features. This caused the beast to bare more teeth in glee.

"Explain."

If I was the master as it said, it should listen. And it had.

"**In your previous life you obtained and gathered all three of my treasures. Treasures I had once gifted to three individual souls who past my test. Each treasure possessed a single unique ability that none could duplicate. My treasures were highly sought after and various acts of all kinds were committed in the hopes of trying to obtain even just one. But the creatures of that world intrigued me so; And so I placed a forth gift upon my treasures as a whole. Too whom ever gathered all three would become my Master. And thus you had. So when you're physical existence was no more your soul sought out a vessel that had the potential to contain your spiritual and magical essence. After such you seemed to have crafted your current vessel over time to balance out your interminable vitality. Yet the dwellers of the dimension you happened upon seem to have more bite then you appeared to have been ready for. Although your regeneration is great it wasn't fast enough. And thus you are back to an astral sort of state-of-being. However your essence has conformed this vessel so much that it appears as your base form from here on."**

Processing the information was simple though still rather peculiar if a bit unbelieving.

"So according to you I have died once again and am a wondering specter, of sorts?"

The beast nodded its massive head once. **"Correct Master."**

I had taken but a moment to ponder, isolate and pick out multiple options as possibilities.

"Would I be able to return to the prime source of my origins?"

Again the beast nods once. **"Yes, Master."**

I remember humming to a non-spoken agreement before addressing the beast. Its words have been, to this day the only thing that has made me feel both aghast and intoxicated for the unknown.

"Then if all you have said is correct you were also my zanpakutō, Murciélago. As you have stated to have always been by my side. And you refer to me as your master, which a zanpakutō would yield to the wielder who masters them. But you are clearly more. So I will return to where I originally came from, as my memories are not as clear as I would like. Now, stop avoiding the matter. What is your true name?"

The beast's maw had nothing but teeth. It's delight mounted.

"**I took this form to help appease you as circumstances from your first life pertained such an impact on your soul that could not be undone. As will such continue for as long as I hold you as my Master. For you are the Master of Death."**

Arriving back in my origins dimension, back on planet Earth I soon discovered that while millennia passed by in Hueco Mundo it would seem only two years have gone by here.

**AN:** This is the opening to a story I have been planning for 2 years now. There will be 8 chapters, this one included in total, though the rest will be fairly longer.

Also the first person narration is only for the prequel. The remainder of the story will continue in third person.

I do not know when I will be updating this story, as I have been very busy these past few years and still am, but I wanted to share something new with you all and to prove I am indeed still active. It is also difficult getting into the right mind set for certain characters as I would like to try and keep them as close to canon-persona as possible.

So please let me know what you think and if you might be interested in this continuing. For those who haven't caught on: Harry is in fact Ulquiorra.


End file.
